Colorado State Rams quarterback Nick Stevens (7) posts then throws a touchdown to wide receiver Jordon Vaden (not pictured) during the Green and Gold Spring game at Sonny Lubick Field at Hughes Stadium on April 18, 2015. (Andy Cross, The Denver Post)

For the first time since 2006, the Colorado State Rams will open their football season at home. CSU will take on Savannah State at 2 p.m. Sept. 5.

The school’s college of agricultural sciences is hosting its annual Ag Day celebration that day and there is an “Orange Out” theme for the game. The Rams players will be wearing orange jerseys to help honor the CSU’s agricultural heritage.

With a victory over Savannah State, CSU will earn its 500th win for the school’s football program. The Rams have won eight straight home games, dating back to 2013.

Zach Golditch at Gateway’s practice three weeks after he was wounded in the Aurora theater shootings. Note the bandage below his left ear, where he was wounded. (Denver Post file)

Colorado State redshirt sophomore offensive lineman Zack Golditch, 20, was among the 70 wounded in the Aurora theater shootings. He was one of only three victims whose injuries were involved in lesser charge guilty verdicts Thursday for the convicted killer of 12.

The defendant was found guilty of second-degree attempted murder in two separate counts tied to injuries of Golditch, Gage Hankins and McKayla Hicks. Otherwise, the defendant was convicted of all charges brought, including first degree murder and attempted first degree murder.

First-year Colorado State coach Mike Bobo went back to his native Southeast to get a quarterback for the 2016 recruiting cycle, landing an oral commitment from Collin Hill of Dorman High School in Roebuck, S.C.

Hill, 6-foot-4 and 205 pounds, confirmed his commitment via Twitter. He is rated a three-star prospect by Rivals.com. He chose Colorado State over Marshall.

Bobo had scouted Hill when Bobo was offensive coordinator at Georgia. Hill passed for 2,318 yards and 23 touchdown last fall as a junior.

FORT COLLINS — Colorado State Friday announced that 6-foot-4 guard C.J. Keyser, a senior at Sunrise Christian Academy in suburban Wichita, had signed a letter of intent to join the Rams’ program as a freshman in 2015-16.

The expected announcement came on the third day of the national letter of intent signing period.

Keyser is from Bel Air, Md., and began his prep career at Patterson Mill High School in Maryland.

At Sunrise Christian, Keyser was a teammate of another CSU recuit, 6-10 forward Nick Cavarcho.

CSU coach Larry Eustachy said that Keyser “is an elite athlete with tremendous size at the guard position. He is has a good skill level and has a chance to be an elite defender.”

On his initial impressions: “I think what I learned through the process when I was being considered for the job up until I received the office, everything that I learned through that process has been validated since I’ve been here. There haven’t been any surprises, and I don’t think there were any efforts not to be fully transparent. So I feel like I was going in with eyes wide open, and I feel like everything I knew before I arrived has been validated. It’s a special place, I’m learning that every day, and enjoying it too.”

On whether, given his stints at three Big 12 schools, he has been given a mandate to get CSU into the Big 12:

My story on Kevin Davis and Deonte Clyburn as the heirs apparent to departed CSU linebackers Max Morgan and Aaron Davis is here.

I wrote it off a visit to the Rams’ Tuesday practice, and I’ll make more trips next week after the Avalanche season is over and as CSU finishes up spring practice with three workouts during the week and then the Green and Gold Game April 18 at Hughes Stadium.

Davis’ background, as you know if you’ve read the story, is unique and interesting.

Kevin Davis (CSU photo)

In the story, Davis mentioned giving up hockey after playing it since his youth in Germany and starring for two seasons for the Cheyenne Mountain High School team as a sophomore and junior in the Colorado Springs area. This part of this answer didn’t make the story: “Maybe if I would have played triple-A (youth top level) or something like that, it would have been different.” Read more…

Morgan Pearson crosses the finish line during the 2013 NCAA Cross Country Championships in Terre Haute, Ind., on Nov. 23, 2013. Pearson finished fifth in the men’s 3K indoors on Saturday at the NCAA championships. (Aaron P. Bernstein, Special to The Denver Post)

Colorado’s Morgan Pearson earned first team All-America honors with a fifth place finish in the men’s 3,000 meter run on Saturday at the NCAA Indoor National Championships, a performance that redeemed a 14th place finish in the men’s 5K on Friday during a race in which he turned his ankle.

That was the highest finish of any Colorado collegiate athlete competing at NCAAs.

“Of course we were disappointed yesterday,” head coach Mark Wetmore said in a statement of Pearson. “He make some tactical mistakes, but he also stepped on the rail in the middle of the race and turned his ankle enough to upset him and get him off his game and bother him. I wasn’t sure he would be able to run … but he never mentioned not running. He iced it a lot overnight and went into this race with a different strategy and got a much better outcome. [The] race was the race we knew he had in him. I think he feels pretty good about it and so do I.”

FORT COLLINS — My story on Mike Bobo’s news conference in advance of Tuesday’s opening of spring practice is here.

Despite my temporary re-deployment to hockey and the Avalanche of late, I managed to make it through the entire news conference without asking Bobo about the power play or who would be the left wing on the fourth line.

Here are some additional notes:

Bobo on quickening the pace in practice (and games): “The organization is the same, but the tempo will be a lot faster. They were a huddle team. We’ll be a no-huddle team … that bounces from a two-back to a one-back. We’re not just a no-huddle spread team, but we’re going to play fast and we’re going to practice fast. Everything we do in practice is going to be how fast can we get it done, get lined up, get our assignment and our alignment and run the play, execute it properly as fast as possible. … Our goal is to be the best-conditioned team in the country and that’s how we’ve trained. We’re going to run more plays. We’re going to play faster and we’re going to have to be in better condition than the team that we play. We’ve been preaching that since Day 1 of the Fourth Quarter program that this is how we’re going to practice and this is how we’re going to play.”

Wyoming head coach Larry Shyatt, left, speaks with Riley Grabau, right, during a break in play as Wyoming faced New Mexico in a NCAA men’s basketball game on Saturday, Jan. 24, 2015, at Arena-Auditorium in Laramie. (Ryan Dorgan, Casper Star-Tribune)

In advance of Wednesday night’s Mountain West Conference college men’s basketball battle between Colorado State and Wyoming in Laramie, Cowboys coach Larry Shyatt praised CSU.

“Where Colorado State is different than other teams is they are really blessed with being the best offensive team in the league,” Shyatt said.

Terry Fair was hired as Colorado State’s cornerbacks coach, the school announced Wednesday.

Fair spent the last two seasons on the University of Tennessee’s defensive coaching staff.

“Terry Fair is a rising star in the coaching profession, and is a tremendous addition to our program,” CSU head coach Mike Bobo said in a release. “He was a great player at Tennessee, and in the NFL, and is hungry to teach and mold young men as a coach and mentor.”

Fair was drafted the first round of the 1998 NFL Draft by Detroit. He played six years in the NFL with the Lions, Carolina and St. Louis.

From thefirst NCAA hoops title matchup between Oregon and Ohio State. Oregon’s John Dick (18), the game’s leading scorer, defends a Buckeye at the hoop. Other Webfoots are Hall of Famer Laddie Gale (28) and captain Bobby Anet, right. (AP Photo.)

My commentary on the weird coincidence of Oregon vs. Ohio State being the inaugural title game matchup in both the College Football Playoff and the NCAA basketball tournament — 76 years apart — is in the Monday paper and here.

I included snippets of information on that first hoops tournament, title game and championship Oregon team that I went into great detail about in my 2014 book, March 1939: Before the Madness. It starts to answer the question I often was asked when I brought up the coincidence virtually the instant the matchup was assured: How’d you know that?

I knew it not only because I wrote a book on it, but because I was raised around Oregon sports, and the men of the 1939 Webfoots basketball team (aka, The Tall Firs) were legendary. Five members of the squad, including both starting guards, hailed from the Oregon fishing town of Astoria, where the Columbia River runs into the Pacific Ocean. The biggest star, future Hall of Famer Laddie Gale, was from tiny Oakridge, Oregon. The leading scorer in the first title game, junior forward John Dick, was from The Dalles, Oregon, in the Columbia River Gorge, and starting center Slim Wintermute was from Longview, in southwest Washington. Dick became a Naval flyer in World War II, then remained in the service, switching to ship duty and becoming captain of the supercarrier USS Saratoga and retiring as a rear admiral.

Belatedly — yes, I should have done it sooner, perhaps when I was working at the Oregonian — I got around to writing about them as the cornerstones of my seventh book, which also dealt with the national invitation tournament and the entire college basketball season playing out against the backdrop of increased international tensions that would lead to the outbreak of World War II.

That version of the column does not include the information that this was even more eerie for me because I had attended the Oregon spring game and renewed ties in early May because my father, Jerry, an Oregon assistant for 12 seasons and the head coach for five, was honored that weekend.

An office in the new Hatfield-Dowlin football complex was named after him, and at the spring game, he was saluted as part of “Military Appreciation Day” because of his P-38 fighter pilot service during World War II. His 67 missions over Japanese targets in the one-man plane came in the three-year break between his sophomore and junior football seasons as a Wisconsin guard.

That information never was included in his coaching biography and his players were shocked to hear about it for the first time, mostly after his 2001 death.

That’s just the way those Greatest Generation guys were.

Former Oregon head coach Jerry Frei in his P-38 fighter pilot gear, shown on the Autzen Stadium scoreboard as part of a tribute at the 2014 spring game

It was hard to tell much from the spring game, of course, but Marcus Mariota’s poised demeanor was striking and Oregon officials were gracious hosts for our family at various events. Also, when Oregon officials showed a sequence of pictures of my father on the scoreboard, including of him in pilot gear and in the cramped P-38 cockpit, and public-address announcer Don Essig narrated from the script, I noticed that many of the Oregon players watched — and clapped.

Among those I enjoyed talking with that weekend were Oregon assistants Steve Greatwood, the Ducks’ long-time offensive line coach, and Matt Lubick; many of my father’s former assistants and players, and one of my father’s successors, Rich Brooks. I also enjoyed doing a signing for March 1939 at the Oregon Bookstore’s Autzen Stadium branch after the spring game.

So I’ve been following the Ducks with heightened interest this season, watching as they recovered from the regular-season loss to Arizona and routed the Wildcats in the Pac-12 championship game and then romped past Florida State in the Rose Bowl semifinal.

And I admit I was astounded when they ended up matched up against the Buckeyes again … in a different first title game.

A kicker tidbit: Colorado, which had played in the first national invitation tournament in 1938 with Whizzer White as a solid contributor, and lost to Temple 60-36 in the title game at Madison Square Garden, turned down an invitation to the first NCAA tournament. The Buffs won the Big 7 Conference, which also included Colorado A&M/State. CU would have had a two-week layoff between the end of the regular season and the regional. Here’s a passage from March 1939:

CU officials announced that they would conduct a vote among
the players and take the result under advisement. With the Buffaloes’
season over and no league playoffs, Colorado’s players knew
they would have two weeks to rest up for the regional—or, to put
it another way, their season would be extended at least two weeks
if they accepted the bid. These were mostly the same fellows who
the previous year had traveled by train cross-country to play in the
first national invitation tournament, and then made another trip to
New York in December. Would they be up for more travel, first to
San Francisco, then possibly to Chicago? For a new tournament?

The Buffaloes’ decision was announced Tuesday.

No, thanks.

Colorado’s athletic committee said that it had consulted with
Coach Frosty Cox and the players, and the decision was based on
the fact that the Buffaloes were banged up, tired, and even sick.
CU’s star center, Jack Harvey, was hospitalized three times during
the season and missed the final three games because of illness, and
two other starters had spent time in the hospital, also. Without
naming the national invitation tournament, the committee said CU
wouldn’t consider taking part in any other tournament, either. The
Buffaloes were going to stay home.

So CU passed on a chance to make history. The district selection committee chose Big 7 runnerup Utah State to represent the Rocky Mountain region in the four-team West regional at San Francisco, and the Aggies fell to Oklahoma 50-39.

In the locker room after the title game, Oregon guards Wally Johansen — who were raised across the street from each other in Astoria, Oregon — and star forward Laddie Gale. Anet is holding the broken championship trophy.

Garrett Grayson and 15 other seniors will be honored Saturday at CSU-New Mexico game (Photo by Doug Pensinger/Getty Images)

For the second consecutive year, Colorado State will be represented at the NFL Combine with multiple participants.

CSU announced that quarterback Garrett Grayson and offensive lineman Ty Sambrailo were invited to the February 17-23 combine in Indianapolis, Ind.

Last February, CSU was represented at the NFL Combine by center Weston Richburg, tight end Crockett Gillmore and running back Kapri Bibbs.

Grayson earned 2014 offensive player of the year honors for the Mountain West Conference after breaking his CSU single-season records for passing yards (4,006) and passing touchdowns (32).

A left tackle protecting Grayson’s blind side, Sambrailo missed two games because of injury this season but graded at least 90 percent in each of the other 11. The Californian was credited with more than 65 knockdown blocks, according to CSU.

A native of the Vancouver, Wash., area, Grayson has accepted invitations to play in the Senior Bowl and East-West Shrine Game. Sambrailo will play in the Senior Bowl.

Quarterback Mike Bobo, pictured in October 1997 in a game against Kentucky, has agreed in principle to be Colorado State’s next head coach. (Andy Lyons, Getty Images)

As the Post’s Terry Frei reported Monday afternoon, the Colorado State Rams have reached an agreement in principle with Mike Bobo, Georgia’s offensive coordinator, to be their new head coach. Bobo, 40, would take over a program that Jim McElwain guided to a 10-2 record and a spot among the top 25 in both the AP and USA TODAY coaches’ polls numerous times throughout last season.

A Georgia native, Bobo was a quarterback for the Bulldogs from 1994-97, and ranks among their most prolific passers of all time. He is No. 3 among Bulldog QBs in passing efficiency rating in a season (155.80 in 1997) and tops in completion percentage in a season (65.03 percent, 1997). He also ranks No. 5 in career touchdown passes (38) and still holds the school record for most consecutive completions to start a game (19), which he achieved in the 1998 Outback Bowl against Wisconsin.

And before all that, he was a star at Thomasville High, where he was named the state’s high school player of the year in 1993 and. Check him out in 1992, when Thomasville faced the Peach County Trojans in the 3A state quarterfinals (he’s No. 14).

LAS VEGAS — With Utah leading Colorado State 24-10 at the half of the Las Vegas Bowl, the game has a bit of a familiar feel.

Although the Rams have hung in and played better defensively in the second quarter, this is a lot like their 37-24 loss at Boise State in the second game of the season — the loss that came before they ran off nine wins in a row before falling to Air Force in the regular-season finale.

CSU looked physically overmatched for much of that game, and so far, this is a reprise of that night in Boise.

They haven’t been able to mount much of a running attack, with Dee Hart and Treyous Jarrells alternating. Officially, CSU has 13 yards on 11 rushes, with one sack of Garrett Grayson figuring into that.

Grayson hasn’t had a lot of time to let routes develop, so it’s more than the sack.

At least initially, Utah had little trouble moving the ball, and the Utes have 327 yards of total offense in the first half.

The good news for the Rams is that this could have been a lot worse. Andy Phillips missed a 38-yard field goal on the final play of the half. Otherwise, it would be 27-10.

LAS VEGAS — As I start typing, we’re about 90 minutes from kickoff at the Las Vegas Bowl.

I’ve mentioned this several times the last few weeks, but one of the charms of the bowl season is its unpredictability, especially when nothing major is at stake in individual games.

Often, one team looks as if it isn’t into it. It’s not so much that they don’t want to be there, but are treating the game as an anticlimax rather than a chance to additionally establish credibility and finish the season on an upbeat note. Read more…

Kensler joined The Denver Post in 1989 and has covered a variety of beats, including Colorado, Colorado State, golf, Olympics and the Denver Broncos. His brush with greatness: losing in a two-on-two pickup basketball game at Ohio State against two-time Heisman Trophy winner Archie Griffin.

Terry Frei graduated from Wheat Ridge High School in the Denver area and has degrees in history and journalism from the University of Colorado-Boulder. He worked for the Rocky Mountain News while attending CU and joined the Post staff after graduation. He has also worked at the Oregonian in Portland, Ore., and The Sporting News. His seventh book, March 1939: Before the Madness, was issued in February 2014.